


The nightshirt

by dmdiane



Category: NCIS: Los Angeles
Genre: Background Case, Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Relationship, F/M, First Time, Nell's nightshirt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:35:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21648403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dmdiane/pseuds/dmdiane
Summary: 'He watches the quirky smartass guarded protection of Nell’s mannerisms lower one layer at a time until she is raw and beautiful, her concentration turns into pure energy. When did he come to take for granted how lovely she is? She’s no bigger than a minute but her fiery intellect takes up figurative space her diminutive stature cannot. He’s accustomed to her prettiness, her scathing wit, the conventional things about her that make others miss the danger. Watching her tonight, he’s aware of having come to categorize her as an asset when she is so much more. He forces his mind back to the present. She’s quiet, eyes taking in three screens of data, chewing on a mechanical pencil. 'Yet another short sweet version of these two becoming a couple.
Relationships: G Callen/Nell Jones
Comments: 11
Kudos: 90





	The nightshirt

The door sweeps open from under G’s knuckles even as he knocks. Nell assesses him with a single slow glance that pierces and dismisses him at the same time. He wonders how she does that and notices as she pivots and walks away from him that she is wearing something akin to… _what?_ She ducks around a corner, gone from sight, though still talking. G steps into the apartment and closes the door behind him.

“I’ll be dressed in a minute. What? Did you call from around the corner?” She demands.

_Nightshirt?_

“I pulled up the request from the NSA.” She says.

_Nightgown?_

“They are being nicely cryptic.” Her voice drips with disdain.

 _Something cotton or linen that looks like the kind of thing Ebeneezer Scrooge wore._ He doesn’t understand the following murmurs.

Then, she’s back, looking familiar again in jeans and a Stanford sweatshirt because, of course. She wears dresses to work, keeping her field gear in a go bag. Her in jeans is action gear. She’s got a pair of rather small Chuck Taylors and a gun in one hand and a tablet in the other. The murmuring is explained by the key strap in her teeth. He extends a hand for the tablet and watches her deftly juggle the shoes and the gun, slipping the gun in the small of her back and retrieving the keys from her mouth, tucking those into another pocket. 

“Let’s go.” She’s got the door open again, waving him out. 

Tonight’s job for G is strictly chauffeur and bodyguard. Vance never sends Nell into the backroom ops of the CIA field office unaccompanied, no matter what the NSA wants. Fair enough. Though Nell is a field agent of fairly deadly capability herself, G has seen her in the haze of deep web reconnaissance and she’d be vulnerable. Or Vance fears they’ll figure out some way to keep her. Tonight they requested her skills to track and hack a terrorist cell in Connecticut of all places, with designs on NYC.

“I like this car.” Nell settles into the passenger seat of G’s Mercedes with a huff of pleasure. She tugs socks from the hightops and puts on her shoes. She releases her hair from a messy bun atop her head and begins running her fingers through it, twisting and twining until she has a braid hanging down her back. “Wish they’d just call when they need something instead of waiting until the last minute when something is fucking urgent.” She has the tablet on, tapping. 

G realizes in the silence that he hasn’t said anything since they hung up the phone ten minutes ago. Nothing to say, really, but still. He’s known her for a long time. Eleven years, possibly twelve. She’s an integral part of his work and thus his life. He’s known Hetty, Sam, and Kensi longer, but because she builds his legends, ferrets out intel for him, and he mentored her field training, they are close in ways the others aren’t. He has been her bodyguard for all extra-agency work for the past four years. The work has picked up lately. She’s that good. 

“What?” Nell startles him from his reverie.

“What?”

“You’re smiling.” She says.

He glances over. The tablet is dark on her lap. Ah. “Nothing.”

She waits and then raises her brows when he glances over again. 

“Thinking.”

“About?”

“Nothing. Did you figure out where they screwed this up?” G’s distraction works beautifully and she treats him to a detailed account of both successful and failed cyber-hunting at the FBI, Homeland, and the NSA. It seems they are heading towards the CIA field office because it’s the closest thing the NSA has to a fully secure cyber-ops unit. He gathers that means they have the latest tech, but he’s unsure. The ‘latest tech’ status rotates between the federal agencies as their budgets ebb and flow, but someone has always just gotten the latest whatever. G is plenty tech-savvy, although he leaves the nuances to the likes of Nell and the tech ops team. Notwithstanding, he can follow the threads well enough to understand that the group in Connecticut is quite good at covering their various cyber trails. A hint surfaced about incendiary materials acquired and that’s what they need Nell to ferret out. Tonight.

They arrive at the field office to be accompanied through a labyrinth of hallways into cyber-ops. Nell slides effortlessly into the conversation and then to a keyboard. G finds a seat within reach but not in the way. There’s nothing to see from here. The situation could go from idle observation to arrest on a dime. The tension is contagious. The fear that a fact will slip away and result in an explosion in Time Square feels far more real in this room than as an idea in the car on an LA freeway. Not much for him to do either way. He watches Nell work. Her fingers fly across the keyboard. She also takes notes on post-its that begin to decorate the desktop and hang from the bottom of the monitor. 

He watches the quirky smartass guarded protection of Nell’s mannerisms lower one layer at a time until she is raw and beautiful, her concentration turns into pure energy. When did he come to take for granted how lovely she is? She’s no bigger than a minute but her fiery intellect takes up figurative space her diminutive stature cannot. He’s accustomed to her prettiness, her scathing wit, the conventional things about her that make others miss the danger. Watching her tonight, he’s aware of having come to categorize her as an asset when she is so much more. He forces his mind back to the present. She’s quiet, eyes taking in three screens of data, chewing on a mechanical pencil. 

He scans the rest of the room again. Its bunker-like quality is a stark contrast to the casual openness of their own headquarters or the boathouse. In the crowd of agents waiting for information, a couple of tech-ops specialists who have clearly had to surrender their work to Nell look both annoyed and awed. The suits at the door are security, as idle as he feels. 

Two hours later Nell’s keystrokes slow. ‘There,” she says. Every set of eyes in the room rivets to her. “Got you,” she whispers. 

G straightens. 

Pictures come up on the screen showing receipts, text messages, and store security video. The tech-ops agents move closer and begin to tap on their own keyboards. Conversation picks up in the room, as someone on the other side of the console begins making travel plans and the field agent in charge gets on the phone to Connecticut.

In the flurry of activity contacting the Homeland offices in Hartford, setting up surveillance and planning a series of arrests, Nell nails down the evidence she’s snatched from the ether and hands-off the confirmation. The instant bustle is impressive and familiar. G stands, sensing that Nell is nearly done. A supervisor they were not introduced to approaches Nell, and G takes the three steps that take him to her chair. She looks up and back, meeting his eyes, her expression open and relieved. _Brilliant._

Time to do his job. The supervisor, Grant someone, starts with questions that Nell refers back to his tech ops specialist. She picks up post-it notes, handing them off. An assumption floats in the air that she will stay here and continue working the problem. She extricates herself one action at a time. She signs off the computer terminal and gets to her feet.

“Will you…”

“I can’t.” She cuts Grant off mid request. “My orders were to find them. Done. It’s all yours again.”

G keeps his body between her and the busy investigators in the room. She leans into his hand at the small of her back. Extracting her from the project takes longer than G thought it would, but with further clarity about lines of communication with NCIS, they manage to be on their way. It’s early morning, the air outside is cool. Rose-colored sunrise lights the sky. They both have messages to take the day off. 

“Home again.” G comments. 

“Mmmm.” Nell buckles in and leans back, offering him a grin. “Thank you. I appreciate the escort.”

He tilts his head. “Any time.” He starts the car and eases into traffic. “Impressive work. What did you do that they didn’t?”

“I hacked.” She offers.

“Huh.” G considers. 

“They’re a bit, um, linear. They only look for things when they need evidence. I keep an eye on a lot of things online all the time. They are good. I’m between the lines.”

G takes this on board. He thinks of Nell as law-abiding. She mostly is, he guesses. She’s telling him she isn’t all the time. He ought to comment, but he’s not terribly law-abiding himself. 

~

Nell strides into the OSP offices, past G’s desk and up the stairs to tech ops. G follows. 

She sinks into a chair and begins typing before her butt hits the cushion. “Last contact?” She demands.

“With me? 0130. With Sec Nav, 0312.” G watches the screens flash overhead, brief glances of the call records to his cell phone and to overnight operations, a map of a section of Istanbul. Sam is somewhere. Has fallen off communications. _Missing,_ G wants to get on a plane. Instead, he called Nell. _If anyone can find him._

A blip shines on the map as it telescopes magnification. “He called from here,” Nell mutters. “Lost the signal here. But no data wipe. Just vanished. I’m guessing into a Faraday bag.” She sits motionless for a long moment. Long enough that G looks over at her. Her gaze fixes on the middle distance. 

It’s then he notices the nightshirt. She’s tucked it into her jeans, where it seems to be a blouse, but he’s pretty sure that she’s still in her nightshirt. It is 5.00 a.m., so he ought not to be surprised. In fact, had he not seen her in the thing a month ago, he wouldn’t notice. The linen is crumpled softly, _well worn._

Nell’s laugh yanks him back to the present. “Mmmm. Love that man.” She croons.

“What?”

“Right here. Look. That phone number there. It’s your birth date on a DC prefix. He kept a burner. They are on their way out of town.” The map spirals out and green lines project out in a 100-mile radius. “Get Sec Nav on comms. He’s going to need SEALS out there.”

The next ninety minutes are tense and quiet. There’s every chance that Sam has infiltrated a high-level ISIS confab, which is well beyond the scope of his mission and might end badly. Nell and G watch and listen to the SEALS scrambled to the site. By the time the tactical team neutralizes the group and extracts Sam, the sun is up and both Nell and G have shifted from coffee back to tea. 

“Can you call him?” Sam is on a Navy transport helicopter, headed out of Turkey. 

Nell blinks. “Yes.”

G lifts a brow.

She purses her lips, and for a long moment, he thinks she won’t do it. But, she does.

“That was close,” he says to Sam. “Why my birthdate?” He listens. Then ends the call.

“So….”

“He says you’d notice that faster than anything else he could think up.” 

Nell considers. In fact, she did notice, damn near immediately, when G had not. “Hmmph.” She’s shutting down her station. “I’m going back to bed.” 

G nods. He wants to see Sam on friendly soil. “I’ll hang here. Leave early.”

“I’ll probably come in late,” she says. “If I don’t see you later, I’ll see you tomorrow.” She’s on her feet.

G watches her go, his interest tugged along in her wake. 

~

After operations beer-and-dinner is boisterous tonight. The day’s case was routine but also funny. The missing marine turned up in Vegas and his fiance was not amused. His supervisor wasn’t entertained either, as it seemed the kid accidentally took some classified data with him. What looked like an abduction for nefarious purposes was actually a prenuptial abduction by groomsmen who had no idea how much trouble they stirred.

Sam leans back in a chair and Nell perches on his knee. The table is crowded and they have yet to pull up extra chairs. Marty gives Nell grief about a date gone wrong last weekend, and G is mystified by his own attention to the facts of Nell dating again.

He guesses they’ve watched each other weather more than a handful of relationships each. _Unsuccessfully, on the whole._ The implosion of Nell and Eric’s two-year affair is the stuff of legend. Plowing through the ice that was tech ops for the year that followed was not pleasant. G has no idea who asked who to leave, but Eric’s transfer to the RED team in WA was a blessing. The new kid, Beth Clarkson, is a tall willowy extremely young version of Nell. She looks twelve, although she has to be at least 24. She follows Nell around like a baby duck. It’s very cute.

G sips beer and allows his interest to sink further into his bones. He hasn’t considered dating Nell in near a decade. A lot has changed. He will be 50 next year. Seven short years from mandatory retirement, unless he wants a non-active duty job. She is fifteen years his junior, a gap that seems recently bridgeable. God knows she’s smarter than he is, which says something. 

Her gaze meets his, full of knowledge and fondness. The conversation veers to Sam’s new bi-coastal romance with Ellie Bishop, a fellow agent in DC. Nell’s eyes linger on G and he tilts his head. In answer, she slips off of Sam and onto the edge of G’s chair. 

“What’s on your mind?” She asks, her voice below the conversation at the table.

“Believe it or not, you,” he says.

She raises her brows slowly, gauging his truthfulness. She must deem him honest because her answering smile goes wide and genuine. She moves from the precarious perch beside him to his knees and settles there, rejoining the conversation as it drifts towards holiday plans. It seems Sam’s kids will be spending the winter break with Michele’s parents. Though Sam was invited, he will spend a couple of weeks in DC before joining them. Marty and Kensi are having their moms over for Christmas celebrations. Nell doesn’t have plans, nor does G, and Beth is going home to her folks for a long weekend. 

The evening winds down early in honor of work tomorrow. When Nell stands, G notes the loss of her weight on him. She is tiny, easy to hold. She smells of bergamot and roses. Tucked into her jeans jacket, she narrows her eyes at him from under the brim of her fedora. “D’you have a minute?” She asks.

He follows her to her car, where she leans on the driver’s door and looks up at him. 

“Are you…” she starts. She folds her lips in, shakes her head. “What’s different? Why…” 

He’s charmed by the juxtaposition of her wanting to talk to him and not knowing what to say. “Yeah. I probably am. Would that be awful?” He answers her unasked question as best he can.

“No. Just. It’s been forever and we haven’t.” Her pupils flare, making her maple colored eyes seem huge and dark. 

He shrugs. “Want to try?”

“I didn’t know there was the option.” She admits.

“I didn’t either.” He agrees.

She huffs a low chuckle. “G.”

She typically calls him Callen. G sounds nice. He takes a step, well into her personal space. “Is there?”

“Seems like yeah.”

“Seems?”

“Is. Yeah. Yes.” A whisper, still a yes. 

His hand touches her chin, lifting her face. He drops a kiss on her lips. She sucks in a breath and he licks into her mouth, seeking. She kisses him back, tongues sliding together in a soft, slow, caress. 

~

G is a tender and creative lover. Nell is only called upon to respond in this first encounter. Good thing, too, it’s all she can do to keep pace. His hands are skilled, rough, if gentle. The contrast is delightful. She marvels at the adventure of making love with someone she knows so well. His body is familiar, square and sturdy, lean and scarred. She has watched him flee, fight, fall, all on a screen. Still, she recognizes the way he reaches, moves, claims. His hands and mouth are possessive. The pleasure in having all of him, so much luscious skin, is thrilling. He lingers over her, eyes, followed by hands, followed by mouth, in a slow exploration.

He cherishes and she sighs to his touches. As he peels off the last of his clothing and they press together from knees to noses she shudders with anticipation. There is a pause in the exchange of breath, his eyes are black with arousal, surrounded by a rim of blue. His lashes are thick, so close she could count them. His shoulders flex under her hands and they roll together, his frame encompassing hers, she shifts and brings him closer, then closer still. The exhilaration from his thrust makes her gasp and clench around him and they blur together, heat and slick and perfect. 

She drifts into dreams tucked into the curve of his body, his arm heavy over her waist, his breath hot on her neck. She rouses later, still hungry for him and turns over in his arms, kisses him awake, strokes him hard, climbs onto him, savors him. This time her bliss ends with satisfied laughter and she nudges him into the bathroom for a cleanup. 

“Stay,” she says. She pulls her nightshirt over her head.

“Sure?” He’s stepping into his boxers, hand on his jeans. He lets go of the pants and gathers a handful of her shirt, pulling her close.

“I’m sure.” She kisses his chin. Oddly she is sure. Of him. Of them. It’s the strangest thing. She leans into him and feels as if she could lean here forever. 

“Okay.” He kisses her forehead. “I’ll stay.”

~

Watching G vanish into a burning building has a different quality today. Nell’s core clenches tight, she hears it in her voice as she continues the call and response without decent visuals of anything but bright orange flames and black smoke. 

Kensi’s truck screeches to a halt and she and Marty duck into the building, too. Charming.

Seeing them in harm’s way has changed since G became part of her. Not that it was ever exactly comfortable seeing any of them in genuine danger. She asked Kensi how she dealt with it and tries to emulate the understanding that in this situation it’s her job to have his back. She agrees that it’s better to be her than anyone else. She works to keep her voice from breaking, calls out the fire department and bomb squad ETA. Sam has cleared a section of the warehouse and is backtracking to get to G. 

Nell assesses the building and the blaze from the view on the security cameras. “Guys. You’ve got structural involvement.” There have to be accelerants in play, the roof buckles ominously. “You are losing the roof.” She calculates the progress of the melting tar. “I estimate less than five minutes until the building collapse begins.” They have not found Sgt. Jeffrey Collins, but it’s time to leave. Marty and Kensi emerge from a back door. 

“Come on, Sam. We’re not gonna find him.” G’s voice is utterly conversational. “Let’s go.”

Nell hears the sirens through comms before seeing emergency vehicles arrive. “Guys. You’re still not out of range of debris if this place goes up.”

Two fire trucks spill firemen into the parking lot. Nell switches to their frequency to alert them to the potential of explosives. Instead of approaching the warehouse the firemen begin setting up a perimeter. 

“G.” Sam’s voice is all but lost in the chatter on comms now. “Over here.”

“Gentlemen. You need to leave now.” Nell generally refrains from giving instructions, but this seems like the time. Not like they will comply. There is another siren, some grunting, and a loud creak of stressed metal. G and Sam jog from the building, a body between them, they reach Kensi and Deeks and Nell lets a breath ease out. 

The building explodes in a visual array of white, orange, black, and debris. 

“Uh.” Beth breaks her customary silence with a gasp. 

Nell’s heart crashes into her ribs. She dryly informs the watch commander of the team’s last location, watching as four men in heavy uniforms run. 

~

She finds him in a curtained cubicle in the ER, sitting cross-legged on a gurney, his hand and arm bandaged. 

“I’m fine.”

“Burns?”

“Nah, scrapes. Coupla stitches.” G beckons her closer with his free hand. He tugs at her sweater, pulling her to him. She lets herself lean into him cautiously, but he does seem to be alright. She surrenders her weight to him. “Collins?”

“Alive. Still unconscious.” 

“Sam?”

“Concussed. Irritated.”

G chuckles. “No doubt.” His free hand strokes up her back and into her hair. 

“Marty and Kensi are fine, on their way home.” She offers before he can ask. “They are keeping Sam here overnight.”

“I should be discharged soon.” He says. “You alright?” He smells of gasoline and smoke, his deodorant gave up ages ago and he’s covered in a fine grit that rasps against her skin. 

“Mmmm.” 

He kisses her temple. “Sorry, that got a bit intense today.”

“A bit.” She takes a long breath. “But, it’s done.”

“Yeah, until next time.”

She pokes him in the side. Hard.

“Ow.”

“Asshole.”

He grins. 

A shower and a hot meal do much to reorient the day’s end. Nell pulls her nightshirt over her head and pads barefoot to the kitchen for G’s pain meds and some water. This will be a Netflix and chill evening. She watches him take his meds, then curls up on the sofa beside him with the remote. He will be asleep in moments, she reckons. She might as well watch what she wants. Exhaustion hangs on her limbs, too. G has a handful of her nightshirt, absently rubbing the fabric between his fingers. He sometimes does this with her hair. She snuggles closer. He’s warm and solid under her. Where he ought to be, she thinks, and wonders. She leans forward and sets her teeth gently into his brachioradialis.

“Guh.” G releases the fabric of her nightshirt, the muscle flexes beneath her teeth. 

She lets go and licks the skin where she left faint tooth marks. “Mine.” She growls.

G slides around until they lie nestled together, neither of them facing the television. “I believe yeah, yours.” 

“Is that okay?”

“It is.”

They drift to sleep there, his fist in her shirt, her leg over his hips, with an infomercial playing in the background. 

**Author's Note:**

> I will go down with this ship.


End file.
